[wbhart]

There is no way for the general public to distinguish between arguments presented in this way that are genuine, and ones that are pseudoscientific. It's never ok to knowingly present information which is unscientific, to achieve a political end. It can be discredited and may do more damage to the cause than good. In this particular case, polar bear populations are not observed to be in decline, so it's a poor argument to make, which can easily be discredited with real data.

[ritchiea]

I strongly disagree with you. There is research in social psychology showing it is difficult for most people to reason from technical, statistical arguments. One thing I have noticed reading political essays recently is that the emotional impact of scientific, technical and statistical arguments can be bolstered with fitting specific anecdotal evidence. Logic is often not enough to change people's views or motivate them to change. This applies to the most logically minded of us as well.